of the Company; for otherwise it is no concern of mine.  Should these oppressions continue one or two years longer, and the rulers take no measures to put a stop to them, the whole country will be a desert.”

My Lords, upon these statements I have only to make this remark,—­that you have seen the first state of this country, and that the period when it had fallen into the state last described was about two years after Mr. Hastings had obtained the majority in the Council and began to govern this country by his lieutenants.  We know that the country was put by him under military collectors:  you see the consequences.  The person who makes this representation to Mr. Hastings of the state of the country, of its distress and calamity, and of the desolation of a thousand of the villages formerly flourishing in it, is no less a person than a prince of a neighboring country, a person of whom you have often heard, and to whom the cause of humanity is much indebted, namely, Fyzoola Khan,—­a prince whose country the English Resident, travelling through, declares to be cultivated like a garden.  That this was the state of the Rohilla country is owing to its having very fortunately been one of those that escaped the dominion of Mr. Hastings.

We will now read to your Lordships a letter from Sir Eyre Coote to the board at Calcutta, dated the 11th of September, 1779.

“Honorable Sir and Sirs,—­The day before yesterday I encamped near Allahabad, where the Vizier did me the honor of a visit; and yesterday morning, in my way hither, I returned it, and was received by his Excellency with every mark of respect and distinction.  This morning he called here, and we had some general conversation, which principally turned upon the subject of his attachment to the English, and his readiness to show the sincerity of it upon all occasions.  It is to be wished we had employed the influence which such favorable sentiments must have given us more to the benefit of the country and ourselves; but I fear the distresses which evidently appear on the face of the one, and the failure of the revenues to the other, are not to be wholly ascribed to the Vizier’s mismanagement.”

This is the testimony of Mr. Hastings’s own pensioner, Sir Eyre Coote, respecting the known state of the country during the time of this horrible usurpation, which Sir Eyre Coote mentions under the soft name of our influence.  But there could be but one voice upon the subject, and that your Lordships shall now hear from Mr. Hastings himself.  We refer your Lordships to the Minute of the Governor-General’s Consultation, Fort William, 21st May, 1781:  he is here giving his reasons for going into the upper provinces.